Credit Where Credit is Due: Excessive Criticism of Humanitarian Aid Organisations is Unnecessary and Counter-Productive
May 24th 2008 08:32
Credit Where Credit is Due: Excessive Criticism of Humanitarian Aid Organisations is Unnecessary and Counter-Productive
On 8th May 2008 I was invited to address the board of Oxfam Australia about risk management in not-for-profit aid organisations. Just the night before, the world had been rocked by news of a devastating cyclone in Burma putting tens of thousands of lives in jeopardy, and frankly I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would I find a group of out-of-touch dreamers, stuck in a time warp, overwhelmed by the challenges confronting them, with noble ambitions but limited professional capacity? Or would I find a group of disillusioned bureaucrats, lacking in vision, without a dream, more interested in bean-counting and number-crunching than in making the world a better place? Or perhaps something else entirely?
What I discovered at Oxfam Australia was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be a modern humanitarian aid organisation; a world-class operation built around a close-knit team of dedicated, experienced and professional personnel. Highly competent in their respective fields of expertise and equally passionate about what they are doing, they are keeping the dream alive against challenging odds.
The fact is, truly successful aid organisations like Oxfam Australia are the ones that combine financial and managerial expertise with a genuine passion for helping others. In principle, this is a simple observation that belongs in the diminishing realm of common sense in the business context. It should not be dismissed lightly, however, for the divide between responsible management and rendering aid in dangerous situations is one of the fundamental risk management trade-offs in not-for-profit organisations.
A critical element of responsible management is sound financial management, which is essential to the success of any aid organisation. This is because aid organisations rely primarily on voluntary donations and contributions from individuals with a well-adjusted social conscience for the overwhelming majority of their revenue. In an essentially capitalist society where individuals are encouraged to maximise their own economic worth, donations are often hard to come by, so aid organisations must operate with severely limited financial resources.
Somewhat ironically, financial management is an area that generates considerable criticism for not-for-profit organisations. Analysts are often critical of their performance as measured in publicly released key financial ratios, particularly fundraising expenditure as a proportion of total community support income, administration costs as a percentage of total income, and program expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure. In many instances, such criticism is at best unfounded, and at worst, seriously damaging. Not only does it put their leaders under unnecessary pressure while making complex and critical decisions, it also damages the reputations of aid organisations. This, in turn, has a negative impact on donation revenue for the organisation, prompts aid organisations to incur even greater expenses in marketing, public relations and media advertising and to develop and implement strategies for mitigating reputational risk in the future. At the board level, focus is diverted away from key social objectives. As a result, KPIs and financial ratios suffer further as organisational efficiency is compromised.
This, however, is but the least of the challenges confronting not-for-profit organisations. In addition to the common business challenges associated with scarce resources and financial constraints, aid organisations are committed to seeking out new, increasingly innovative and more effective ways to render aid to those in need. In a very real and physical sense, this is a challenging and potentially hazardous undertaking.
In recent years, and in accord with this commitment, Oxfam Australia has supported long-term development, advocacy and emergency programs in 31 countries around the world. Given the nature of the work, it is not surprising that these include some of the poorest and most politically unstable countries in Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific.
On a daily basis, Oxfam Australia’s core mission exposes its people to serious physical and safety risks in emergency response scenarios. In China’s Yunnan province, Oxfam helped locals prepare for disaster in treacherous areas plagued by landslides and mudflows. When a mammoth 8.1 magnitude earthquake and Tsunami struck the Solomon Islands - killing 52 people within the first few hours - Oxfam was there. There is no denying it, rendering aid to those in need is a challenging and potentially hazardous undertaking.
At the same time, aid organisations are committed to responsible management. In particular, their obligation to ensure their field workers are not exposed to unnecessary risks often comes into conflict with their intense desire to render aid. Consider recent events in Darfur.
On May 2nd 2008 in Darfur, where Oxfam International also renders aid, the death of 49-year-old French aid worker Pascal Marlinge made international headlines. Mr Marlinge worked for was shot dead near the Sudanese border while helping Save the Children UK to deliver protection and assistance to more than 240,000 Darfur refugees. This was not an isolated event. As of 2nd May, Marlinge was the third humanitarian worker killed in 31 attacks this year in Eastern Chad alone. N’Djamena (Reuters) reported that the European Union military force in Chad “does not have enough troops to escort humanitarian convoys in the conflict-torn eastern region.” As EUFOR spokesman Lt-Col Jean Axelos noted, “it’s clear that EUFOR can never be everywhere, all the time.”
It is often the case in conflict-affected areas that humanitarian aid workers are exposed to many of the same risks as those they are trying to support and protect. Consequently, aid organisations are forced to make the fundamental trade-off between delivering aid to those in the most desperate need and the most volatile circumstances, and protecting their staff from life-threatening dangers, all within a context of restrictive financial constraints and scarce resources. Aid organisations are confronted with a difficult decision: “Do we take the risk? Do we put our people in jeopardy, risk their lives on an uncertain prospect? Or do we give up on the victims of natural disasters and conflicts?”
Get the balance wrong, and the result is disastrous.
Here in Australia and throughout the world, humanitarian aid organisations make such critical decisions on a daily basis. They make these critical decisions based on experience, awareness and informed professional judgement. They make these critical decisions under intense public scrutiny, fully understanding the seriousness of their repercussions; knowing that each decision could be a matter of life or death.
External scrutiny of aid organisations is natural, even healthy, and capable of propelling aid organisations to ever greater heights. Equally important, however, is to understand the challenges confronting the organisations that tackle such critical decisions on a daily basis. Only with such an understanding can we truly appreciate their genuine efforts to make this world a better place.
On 8th May 2008 I was invited to address the board of Oxfam Australia about risk management in not-for-profit aid organisations. Just the night before, the world had been rocked by news of a devastating cyclone in Burma putting tens of thousands of lives in jeopardy, and frankly I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would I find a group of out-of-touch dreamers, stuck in a time warp, overwhelmed by the challenges confronting them, with noble ambitions but limited professional capacity? Or would I find a group of disillusioned bureaucrats, lacking in vision, without a dream, more interested in bean-counting and number-crunching than in making the world a better place? Or perhaps something else entirely?
What I discovered at Oxfam Australia was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be a modern humanitarian aid organisation; a world-class operation built around a close-knit team of dedicated, experienced and professional personnel. Highly competent in their respective fields of expertise and equally passionate about what they are doing, they are keeping the dream alive against challenging odds.
The fact is, truly successful aid organisations like Oxfam Australia are the ones that combine financial and managerial expertise with a genuine passion for helping others. In principle, this is a simple observation that belongs in the diminishing realm of common sense in the business context. It should not be dismissed lightly, however, for the divide between responsible management and rendering aid in dangerous situations is one of the fundamental risk management trade-offs in not-for-profit organisations.
A critical element of responsible management is sound financial management, which is essential to the success of any aid organisation. This is because aid organisations rely primarily on voluntary donations and contributions from individuals with a well-adjusted social conscience for the overwhelming majority of their revenue. In an essentially capitalist society where individuals are encouraged to maximise their own economic worth, donations are often hard to come by, so aid organisations must operate with severely limited financial resources.
Somewhat ironically, financial management is an area that generates considerable criticism for not-for-profit organisations. Analysts are often critical of their performance as measured in publicly released key financial ratios, particularly fundraising expenditure as a proportion of total community support income, administration costs as a percentage of total income, and program expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure. In many instances, such criticism is at best unfounded, and at worst, seriously damaging. Not only does it put their leaders under unnecessary pressure while making complex and critical decisions, it also damages the reputations of aid organisations. This, in turn, has a negative impact on donation revenue for the organisation, prompts aid organisations to incur even greater expenses in marketing, public relations and media advertising and to develop and implement strategies for mitigating reputational risk in the future. At the board level, focus is diverted away from key social objectives. As a result, KPIs and financial ratios suffer further as organisational efficiency is compromised.
This, however, is but the least of the challenges confronting not-for-profit organisations. In addition to the common business challenges associated with scarce resources and financial constraints, aid organisations are committed to seeking out new, increasingly innovative and more effective ways to render aid to those in need. In a very real and physical sense, this is a challenging and potentially hazardous undertaking.
In recent years, and in accord with this commitment, Oxfam Australia has supported long-term development, advocacy and emergency programs in 31 countries around the world. Given the nature of the work, it is not surprising that these include some of the poorest and most politically unstable countries in Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific.
On a daily basis, Oxfam Australia’s core mission exposes its people to serious physical and safety risks in emergency response scenarios. In China’s Yunnan province, Oxfam helped locals prepare for disaster in treacherous areas plagued by landslides and mudflows. When a mammoth 8.1 magnitude earthquake and Tsunami struck the Solomon Islands - killing 52 people within the first few hours - Oxfam was there. There is no denying it, rendering aid to those in need is a challenging and potentially hazardous undertaking.
At the same time, aid organisations are committed to responsible management. In particular, their obligation to ensure their field workers are not exposed to unnecessary risks often comes into conflict with their intense desire to render aid. Consider recent events in Darfur.
On May 2nd 2008 in Darfur, where Oxfam International also renders aid, the death of 49-year-old French aid worker Pascal Marlinge made international headlines. Mr Marlinge worked for was shot dead near the Sudanese border while helping Save the Children UK to deliver protection and assistance to more than 240,000 Darfur refugees. This was not an isolated event. As of 2nd May, Marlinge was the third humanitarian worker killed in 31 attacks this year in Eastern Chad alone. N’Djamena (Reuters) reported that the European Union military force in Chad “does not have enough troops to escort humanitarian convoys in the conflict-torn eastern region.” As EUFOR spokesman Lt-Col Jean Axelos noted, “it’s clear that EUFOR can never be everywhere, all the time.”
It is often the case in conflict-affected areas that humanitarian aid workers are exposed to many of the same risks as those they are trying to support and protect. Consequently, aid organisations are forced to make the fundamental trade-off between delivering aid to those in the most desperate need and the most volatile circumstances, and protecting their staff from life-threatening dangers, all within a context of restrictive financial constraints and scarce resources. Aid organisations are confronted with a difficult decision: “Do we take the risk? Do we put our people in jeopardy, risk their lives on an uncertain prospect? Or do we give up on the victims of natural disasters and conflicts?”
Get the balance wrong, and the result is disastrous.
Here in Australia and throughout the world, humanitarian aid organisations make such critical decisions on a daily basis. They make these critical decisions based on experience, awareness and informed professional judgement. They make these critical decisions under intense public scrutiny, fully understanding the seriousness of their repercussions; knowing that each decision could be a matter of life or death.
External scrutiny of aid organisations is natural, even healthy, and capable of propelling aid organisations to ever greater heights. Equally important, however, is to understand the challenges confronting the organisations that tackle such critical decisions on a daily basis. Only with such an understanding can we truly appreciate their genuine efforts to make this world a better place.
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